


Seeking Reprieve

by EerieKing



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual kissing, M/M, Past Abuse, Slow Burn, just let these boys paint and talk what the fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EerieKing/pseuds/EerieKing
Summary: Evan Macmillan has been in the Fog for uncountable time and works as a well-oiled machine. He hunts, he kills, and he waits to be called again. In these times in between, he's the closest he could possibly be to human. He doesn't think of himself that way, and certainly doesn't think of those he hunts as human, but when he realizes he had things in common with a particular survivor, Jeff Johansen, things just don't feel the same anymore.
Relationships: Evan Macmillan | The Trapper/Jeffery "Jeff" Johansen
Comments: 40
Kudos: 78





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I don't know why no one ships the artists, I don't know why Jeff doesn't get more love, I got thoughts about Trapper's relationship with both the Entity and his dad, and just...
> 
> Here. Have this apparently slow burn multichapter rare pair thing want to write

When not hunting, Evan Macmillan often paced the grounds of the broken-down estate that shared his name. He still moved like a hunter, patrolling the pieces of it that came with him to the Fog, all surrounded in that brick wall that was never there in life. In hunts, that wall cordoned off pieces of the estate, corralling both hunter and prey, but now it simply circled the land and separated it from the eternal forest that lay beyond. Further than the forest, the other realms lay, and the other hunters likely paced their own grounds in their anger or sorrow, or whatever it was that drove them.

None of those feelings drove Evan. His circuit he walked was something to do, something worn into his endless nights as habit. There was no way to tell how long he had been in the Fog, not really. He’d tried to count after he was first lost in it, but with no sunrise he quick lost track. Whenever he felt the drag of time too painfully, he’d get up and walk in the cool forever evening. It would burn some uncountable amount of time and generally things would feel more tolerable when he got back.

Even when not in a hunt, Evan’s traps still lay hidden in the tall grass, open teeth as silent watchmen at the openings in the walls around the estate. There was some company Evan would rather not have and some more company yet he’d rather know about before he found them. He’d caught several killers in the snap of their jaws, those who were not careful about whose land onto they wandered. The one with the screaming white mask, who called himself both Jed and Danny depending on the day, had bled, pleaded, and cussed like one of the prey from the trials as he had scrabbled with blood slick gloves to open the jaws from around his leg. When Evan had lifted him out of the trap and chucked him bodily over the threshold, the Entity had sent up its tendrils to block the killer’s reentry. Its influence had creaked into Evan’s mind then, the light notes of amusement and acknowledgement both. _I see._ It had seemed to say then. _No company._

Evan was not keen on that particular company. He knew from his own wanderings outside of the estate that the ghost faced killer had no lands of his own, something he felt made the other distinctly lower class even in this strange place. The other had also taken up the Entity’s offering of a shack as a place to stay, modifying his little hidey-hole like a mouse does a burrow. This made Evan suspicious. Anyone who accepted the Entity’s terms immediately, with no other factors, made him suspicious of their nature. At the very least, it put their nature opposed to his own and Evan didn’t trust that.

Today, the cool breeze drifted over Evan’s scarred shoulders and the estate was quiet. Outside of the hunt, he didn’t carry his cleaver at his side and his workman’s overalls were exchanged for a simple pair of slacks. Shirts in the traditional sense were difficult, ever since the Entity had lodged industrial garbage into his body as punishment for his early rebellion. Even the thought of lingering deformities brought vivid, traumatic memories of being buried, of being subject to suffocation, to the shrapnel of an explosion, of the vivid flashbacks of his father’s beatings. He stopped and put a hand on the cool stone of the border wall, heaving a heavy breath to steady himself. The Entity’s punishment was raw, fresh, and searing even after all this uncountable time. It was an effective reminder of why he obeyed. In life, the way he had hurt from his father’s fists or belt had eased with time. That was not so of the Entity’s wrath. The moment passed, as Evan focused on breathing and on the cold stone under his hand. He came back to the present and shook the dregs of horror from mind, continuing on his walk.

Sometimes, the Entity chose to reassure him when he had those flashback moments that he was an excellent hunter and curled into his mind, showing him the images of crushed hope and pain that pleased it. Other times, it let him recover on his own. This time was one of the latter and Evan didn’t know what made the difference. The creature the created the Fog was all around him and it made up everything. Perhaps it had learned that both hunters and prey occasionally needed to feel alone to not go completely mad before it had wrung all the use it could from them.

In the opposite way that it punished when displeased, the Entity gave gifts when it was particularly pleased. He didn’t know what the other hunters asked for, but Evan asked for comforts. He asked for things that gave a semblance of a normal life, for game to be caught in his traps so he could butcher and eat as if he was a man, for a bed to sleep in, for a charcoal to sketch with and paper to sketch on. It didn’t get these things completely right. Evan felt like it didn’t truly understand how real things worked. He never saw the animals, whether rabbit or deer or anything but the crows who watched during hunts, living. They were already dead in his traps, no matter how quickly he made it there or how shallow the wound. When he hung them to drain them of their blood to butcher them, their guts were put together wrong. Two hearts. Lungs that connected to nothing, not even their mouths. Guts filled to the brim with nothing but intestines. It was a wonder anyone who was in the Fog was any semblance of alive, with how the thing that kept them seemed to understand the living.

Even the home he had asked for, after years of sleeping rough curled up in the decaying buildings in the estate when hiding from the thing all around him while he hoped his wounds would heal and the pains would fade, was also wrong. It was broken, providing him only with the rooms he remembered most strongly rather than the entire sprawling manor. Where he would have found his father’s rooms in like, the Entity provided a broken hallway leading to blank wall. It was for the best, Evan had guessed. Sitting in his father’s study would do worse for him that even some of the torture did.

Evan was halfway through his route when he heard the snap of a trap. He turned in the direction of the sound, listening carefully. He hadn’t seen signs of anyone on his territory but when Evan stood still, he sure enough heard a cry of pain. He set back off in the direction of the sound, the direction of the trespasser to his estate in this time which should be his own. As he got closer, the noises started to tell the trapper about the person he’d caught. Male, more like his age, trying to not make too much noise and failing. Ruled out every other hunter, pretty much. The cowboy wasn’t fool enough to step in someone else’s contraptions, not with how clever he was with his own. The tone of the pained voice also ruled out his usual scavengers – the saboteur and the boy with the glasses who chewed his nails.

Evan approached steadily, finding the place he laid the particular trap. It was a good spot, if he did say so himself, a patch of tall grass next a tree near a break in the wall that would be lit up as an exit gate during a hunt. Thinking how his prey moved often served Evan well. This was no exception. He stopped a few feet away, taking in who it was he had caught.

A newer survivor, one that he hadn’t caught out scavenging before. The dark haired, bearded man with the eye scar who wore an image of death on his chest. He had taken a knee, trying to open the jaws of the trap, and struggling. Evan was practiced at this and noticed that the man must have notice that he stepped on something wrong at the last second and picked up his foot as the trap was closing, as the teeth of its jaws had bitten into his ankle. Cruel, honestly, as it meant his trapped foot could support no weight that didn’t press it further into the trap. He was panting, clearly trying to cope with the pain. Evan tried to remember what the others called this one and he came up blank. He didn’t think of them in terms of names.

“Fuck…shit…can’t believe…” the survivor swore under his breath, bloody fingers slipping against smooth metal as he tried to escape.

Even huffed out a breath of his own, announcing his presence. He preferred to talk as little as he had to in the Fog and certainly didn’t talk to prey. The man’s attention snapped to Evan and his dark eyes went wide. There was silence between them, just the cool breeze and breathing.

Evan had no more desire for blood outside of the hunts. He took a step forward toward the man in his trap, who in turn shied back a bit. Evan rolled his shoulders, a bit annoyed, feeling the twinge of pain from the metal embedded in his muscles as he did so. If he wanted this man to die here, Evan would have just left when he saw it was prey who was trapped. He didn’t commonly intervene, but it wasn’t the first time by any means. Evan had been here so long. The original prey he chased had long since vanished, several times over. 

Instead, Evan just closed the gap. He couldn’t blame the man for spooking. The longer Evan looked at him, the more he remembered this particular scarred face screaming. This was the one that took revenge for being hooked and broke them, so no one else could suffer on them. The ones who tried to protect the others had a quality in them that Evan didn’t think he had ever had in himself. If he had, his father had beat it out of him.

He turned the eyes under his carved mask to his trap, instead of the man in it. A steady hand, clean for once, took one side of the jaws, and opened them. He steadied the opposite side with a heavy boot, and with a well-practiced motion, cranked the mechanism open till it set. In the same movement, he grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and lifted him out of the freshly set trap with the astonishing strength afforded by the thing in the Fog. Evan dropped the man on the other side of the tree, well out of the way of the trap.

The man landed on his stomach with the sound of air being knocked out of him, followed directly by a gasping inhale. He got to his hands and knees, then struggled to stand under Evan’s watchful gaze. He assumed the man’s mangled ankle wouldn’t hold his weight and his assumption was proven true. An attempt to stand was followed by a cry and the survivor and fell back to his knees. Evan heard the pained hyperventilation from him trying to not make more noise. Dark eyes searched for his own green ones under his mask. Even didn’t turn away. He felt well hidden behind the mask, unidentifiable. As if anyone could recognize him even if they knew him, after the fire and the metal the Entity put him through. And put through him.

“Just do it.” The man on his knees in front of Evan said, sounding pained and weak. He didn’t drop his gaze from Evan’s face, searching for something across a face he couldn’t see. Even could smell the blood soaking the dirt from the wound. He expected the man to beg, to crawl away toward the exit, struggle to leave. Instead, he just knelt, looking up at him, waiting for something. “You’ve…you’ve done it before.” The man said.

He knew it. Evan knew it too. He’d remembered, standing here looking at the dark-haired man with his eye scar and beard, that he’d split open the back of his jacket with his cleaver before. Evan had lifted him before, carried him before, drove the Entity’s hooks through his chest so that he’d hang by his collarbone to feed the thing that owned them both before. Evan had remembered his blood running the image of the reaper on his shirt, as calloused hand gripped the rusted hook, trying to keep it from grinding up into bone.

Finally, Evan huffed and looked away from the searching eyes of a man he would call prey in any other circumstance. He held out his own work-rough hands, palms up, showing that he had no weapon. His chest was bare, and his slacks had no pockets that could hold anything deadly. He was even lacking the workman’s apron, spattered with blood, that he wore in the hunts. There were other ways he could do it, true, but he refused to beat a man to death with his fists like his father. He also wasn’t about to shove him back into the trap he had just freed him from. If that had been the intent, it would have been so much easier to just ignore it all.

Evan had no love of torture and suffering. That was the creature that kept him now, and the beast who had raised him, but it was not him. Not anymore. He could just walk away and leave this man to crawl and bleed until he found the gap in the stone wall or died. He couldn’t explain it but, in that moment, looking at the man who had even now faced his death, Evan felt that the earth of the Estate had been watered enough with blood.

He reached out and lifted the man by his belt, noting the flinch when his hand came close. Even unarmed, he was regarded as dangerous. Once, that would have made Evan proud. Now, it just made him hollow. He hefted the hurt man onto his left shoulder, the one mostly free of the debris that was now a part of him. He began to walk towards a gap in the wall and found that it had taken the shape of an exit gate, including flickering light, tonight. He huffed, annoyed that the Entity had opened such a beacon into his lands. He was soothed somewhat by the man not struggling in his grip. Evan had somehow managed to communicate he was not about to maim or kill, not tonight, and that was good enough.

The tendrils of the Entity rose as Evan approached, and a glint of fire was in the distance, as it was only when the Fog had shifted around to make the camp of his prey closer. Good. It wouldn’t be far. Instead of his usual unceremonious drop, Evan eased the man off of his shoulder and settled the other onto his feet while still supporting most of the weight. The survivor reached out for purchase against a stone column and found it, and Evan found dark brown eyes looking at him in a bewildered way. Evan took a step back from him and still the man stared.

Even cracked his neck, uncomfortable with the attention. It wasn’t the way of things. Prey didn’t look at him in wonder. Just in fear. He raised an arm and gestured past the barrier of living wire and towards the camp’s fire in the distance, as if to say _go._ The man nodded slowly and shuffled forward. It was slow going, and he could only use his maimed foot to balance not for weight, but he managed inch by inch. Evan stood stone still, as if moving would spook the other like a rabbit.

Right before he passed the barrier, which writhed and curled to admit the survivor, the man looked back at Evan. “Thank you.”

Evan could not believe his ears. That phrase was foreign to Evan. He could barely remember having heard it in life. There was nothing for him to be thanked for then and even less now, and yet…yet it was said. He stepped forward, unsure of what he wanted to do but having the impulse to do _something._ It was too late. When the survivor crossed the barricade, the Fog beyond shifted. Evan saw the man stumble, grab for a tree trunk to catch himself, and then nothing. The limping figure and the campfire he sought faded from his view, replaced by the infinite forest.

Evan huffed to himself and turned back the way he came. It didn’t feel better to have let the man go. In fact, it stirred something in Evan that he couldn’t name to have gratitude for his mercy voiced. Something uncomfortable. He did try, by way of keeping what sanity he had left, to remember that he was a man and not an animal. A hunter, not a predator. To have someone he had killed before and would kill again treat him as if he were a man? Someone to speak to, someone to even thank.

Evan felt hollow even without the pointless violence now that he was alone with his thoughts again. He picked up the trap that the man had be caught in, quietly closing the mechanism. Its teeth were still dripping with his blood and it should be cleaned. As he did, he noticed a glint of white in the tall grass he hadn’t noticed before. The trapper bent to pick it up, rough fingers smudging a hint of blood onto pages of what looked to be an artist’s pad. A gift from the Entity, perhaps?

When he raised it so he could look through the eye holes of his mask at it properly, it was clearly not this case. This belonged to the survivor. It had to, there were already sketches on so many pages. Other survivors, whom he didn’t have the names to apply to faces, and lands he recognized from hunts. The crumbling farmhouse from the cornfield, the beached boat of the swamps, the wretched machinery of the middle of the hospital which creaked and screamed, and more yet were sketched out in this book. When Evan thumbed to the last used page, he found why his night had suddenly been one with company.

There, sketched on the used last page, was the decrepit ironworks of the Macmillan Estate, all the unnatural lines of steel and decay both. It wasn’t finished, but he could see it clearly and even see the angle from where it had been drawn. Evan held up the sketch so he could look between the real structure and the imagined one. A smile spread over cracked lips as he realized what happened.

There was a branch that blocked the lines of the staircase outside, where it was broken. He took a step back, imagining what the survivor must have done. If it had been Evan, he would have backed up to get the right lines of the break into the sketch, the angle of the way the wood hung from the place it gave way. Then, the trap would have snapped.

Evan looked down to see his foot firmly in the pool of blood that marked where his bear trap had bit into its prey. He would have ended up in the same place, were he looking for a vantage to sketch the landscape. He let the pages flutter closed in his hands and kept it. One hand carrying an artist’s sketchpad, one hand carrying a bear trap, just standing like this felt too on the nose to bear. Evan let the trap clatter to the dirt and started back towards the twisted manor where he laid his head, to let the slow drift of time press down on him again. It was better than being out right now, regardless of the fact that everywhere in the Fog was really the same.

Evan didn’t call anywhere home anymore and that was fine. The manor hadn’t felt like home at the end of his life, even. Being reminded that the prey he hunted were people, just like he had once been and sometimes he pretended he still was? That was decidedly not fine. It was even less fine to be treated as if he was still a person by one of them.

_Thank you._

Evan Macmillan still couldn’t believe his ears.


	2. What's Lost

Jeff.

Evan had found out that the artist’s name was Jeff. It had taken time, but time was something the trapper had an endless amount of. Names for his prey usually slip Evan’s mind, in a practiced sort of way. He didn’t let himself refer to them by the names they called each other. He had learned a long time ago, with survivors that had long since disappeared, that it was worse to remember them. It made his work harder to remember that everyone here in the fog were once people, called by names, living their own lives. This name, however, he had strained to hear and intended to keep. 

He had been called to several hunts since the incident on his lands, and Evan had found himself looking out for the man he had met. The man named Jeff. In two of the hunts, Evan had heard Jeff’s name whispered by his friends as they tried hold their team together through the blood and panic. In those, he didn’t manage to keep track of the artist. Perhaps Jeff felt that Evan was going to be vindictive in the hunt, in exchange for his mercy out of it and was being particularly careful in case he was targeted. The survivor had no way to know that Evan didn’t hold a grudge over the trespassing. It was more the opposite, really. Their interaction had left Evan with a spark of gratitude.

Because of this, Evan had tucked the lost drawing pad into the pocket of his workman’s overalls every time he was called to a hunt. He had found himself thumbing through the art left behind, curious about the stylistic choices made in otherwise very accurate drawings. Evan wished he could ask, but there was no circumstance he could even dream up in this nightmare that would make those questions reasonable to ask. Instead, he had told himself that the reason he had been doing so was to try to return the sketchbook if possible. Evan himself would have mourned losing a sketchbook full of work whether before the fog or after, though for different reasons in each. 

The pad of paper was there now, even, in this hunt that took place in the godforsaken cornfield. Evan had been able to set up his perimeter as he liked it, with three of the generators to power the exits inside a ring of bear traps mostly outside of the stalks. He listened to and tracked the process of the machines being fixed in the distance, watching for their lights come on. He had spooked the saboteur early, getting in an easy wound to get the boy away from where he planned to lay traps, but since then he hadn’t seen much. Someone had been trying to work on the machine in his perimeter closest to the corn but kept slipping away before he saw them. The saboteur again, he guessed, or the gentle healer, perhaps. He had glimpsed them both. Regardless, Evan applied a brutal kick to the machine, causing it to spark. It was simple enough to disrupt his prey’s hasty repairs. 

It was hard to play the long game in a hunt, even though it was his preferred way. That first spill of blood made the Entity prod at Evan to follow up. Its rasping whispers urged him to follow the saboteur across the farm until he caught him. It implored him to run his prey down, split open his back, impale him on the hook and hope today he’d scream. The desire to obey, to hurt, to sacrifice simmered in him, poured into his mind by the Entity that kept him. He could hear its murmuring creaking as someone approached his perimeter and that artificial eagerness made his stomach flutter. Evan huffed out a breath. Not yet. Soon. Not yet. There will be suffering and there’s already fear. Evan could taste it on the air. His thoughts seemed to soothe the thing in the Fog that manipulated his feelings, and the agitation settled a bit. He knew his place. He would do his work. It didn’t have to make him mad with the blood lust, not anymore. He recovered better from the hunts and was ready to work for it again when he kept some remnant of himself. 

A scream ripped through the air, along with a snap of the trap, and he nodded to himself and his observer both. There it is. There’s the suffering. He approached the trap, grip tightened on his cleaver just as he heard the yelp of someone struggling free of the iron jaws. He got there just in time to see the healer being helped out of the trap into the arms of another survivor. She jerked a look back over her shoulder at him and took off running with a limp into the cornfield, out of her rescuer’s grasp. Evan raised the cleaver to cut down whoever had freed his prey. He was fine with them deciding to trade places for wounds. It was only a matter of time before they were all caught. 

It was then that Evan really saw who it was, because the man who saved her had just frozen in place. His hair was tied up, but there was no mistaking him. It was Jeff who had braved his perimeter to save the woman. Evan had also found himself still, finding the desire to not spook the artist stronger than the bubbling desire to obey the Entity’s call for blood. He had, in fact, frozen with his cleaver raised. Slowly, he lowered it back to his side, aware that a quick movement would seem violent. Vaguely, he was aware that Jeff hadn’t flinched from looking at him. 

They stood there, watching each other, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, Evan found himself able to move, and his free hand found the pocket of his overalls. He pulled out the drawing pad and found Jeff’s eyes tracking his movement. Finally, Evan crossed the gap between them and slowly held out his hand with the pad in it. He gestures with it at Jeff, to tell him to take it. Jeff’s eyes went wide, but he took a slow step forward. Evan could see the survivor’s scanning his mask, though he couldn’t imagine what Jeff was looking for. The trapper made sure he stayed still. It was like trying to not spook a deer, when he was young and trying to sketch it. Before all he did was hunt and wait to hunt. 

Finally, Jeff’s hand grasped the other side of the pad and Evan let go. He saw a hint of ink on skin under the sleeve of the artist he reached towards him. Evan found himself wanting to know what was drawn on Jeff’s skin and he could feel heat rise to his cheeks. It wasn’t the boiling blood lust either, though that was also rising as another engine roared to life in the distance. It was still a stupid thought. There would never be a time for that.

“Thank you.” Jeff said softly, as he held the pad to his chest. There it was again. Thank you. Evan huffed a scoff and, this time, he just nodded. Jeff looked surprised and just nodded back. Evan walked past the snapped trap, face still uncomfortably flushed from embarrassment and smacked the closest generator in his perimeter with his cleaver. Metal on metal rung in the air as Evan walked away from his perimeter. He heard cautious footsteps behind him and then the chugging of Jeff trying to get the machine to whir to life. The survivor had taken his meaning and started his work. Good. The sooner this hunt was over, the more chance Jeff would have to get out safely.

Evan refused to turn around to look at Jeff again, agitated by need to obey. He would risk the person he just spared if he turned around. The creaking of the Entity, which he could never tell whether it was in his head or in his ears, was so loud now. It didn’t like that he was leaving an opportunity behind. He was so close to prey, those whispering sounds urged, he could just turn around and swing. Blood was so close. Meat was so close.

Evan ignored it, striding away from the perimeter he had so carefully set. He took measured breaths, deep and steady, trying not to allow the false feelings his keeper in the fog gave him to blind him with violence. Evan focused on the way that the whispers irritated him when they referred to Jeff, to the man who thanked him, as meat. The aggravated tightness between his shoulders made it easier to ignore it right now, though he couldn’t rely on it staying that way. The push of the thing that kept him could be deafening, crippling even. It could make anyone forget their own thoughts. He strode into the corn, insisting in his mind over and over to the Entity that he understood. He would obey. He was a reliable hunter, polished and practiced. He would obey. It just had to pull back a little because he needed to be able to hear over its whispering, or it had to tell him where they others were. The other three he would catch. They would be sacrificed.

Just not Jeff. Not today. Maybe another day, another hunt, but not this one. Being talked to made with a voice made him feel human. It was like when he slept in the bed in the twisted memory of his manor, like when he sat in front of some imitation of a hearth and ate a meal, or like when he was allowed to be in peace and make art. Jeff was due being overlooked, just this once, for that kindness. So, Evan would hunt the others to make up for it. When he heard the sound of someone climbing the stairs of the crumbling farmhouse, Evan stopped resisting the urging of the entity. Instead, he let it consume him. Its whispered shifted, from urging and reminding, to pointed. Upstairs. So close. Go. Hunt.

He stopped pretending he was a man instead of a monster, trained and molded for this very task. Time blurred for the Trapper after that, a smile on his face curling under the jagged one cut in his mask, as the Entity poured blood lust into his soul for screams rang through the fields. Hunt, cut down, hook, scream. Repeat. Hear the squelch of the hook jamming through a ragged hole in the chest that should kill any person outside of the Fog. Stalk away from the hook to find more prey. More blood. More meat. The Entity’s creaking and whispering was deafening as he neared them every time. It would be pleased. In these bloody moments, even the Trapper was pleased, riding high on the intoxication of the hunt. Eventually, the spidery limbs of his keeper lifted three corpses into the sky, to claim the bits of their humanity like it claimed some of his every time he bent to its whims.

Finally, the buzzing of the exit gate jerked the trapper out of his violent haze. Breathing heavily, he emerged from the cornfield, the Entity’s whispering still loud in his ears as he watched the last of his prey hold down the level to open the gate. His bloodied fingers tightened around the hilt of his cleaver. They weren’t far enough away. He could easily run them down now that they were alone. When prey was alone, there didn’t need to be strategy. His size and stride were enough. As he was about to begin the chase, he watched his prey look back over their shoulder to watch out for their hunter. He could tell he wasn’t seen, hidden by the dry stalks and the distance he could quickly close. The scar over their eye apparent in the lights of the gate. Evan’s grip faltered on his weapon, but he did step out of the corn for a better look.

It was Jeff who opened the gate, his figure silhouetted when light flooded out of the open door. The siren breaks the silence of the old farm. Evan stopped approaching and tried to breathe. He had done well, hunted well, and the rush of cruel adrenaline was subsiding. His own thoughts were starting to surface over the flood of it as the Entity pulled its influence away. Distracted by another hunt elsewhere, more likely than not. One with fresher blood. The Trapper had done well enough that the Entity was pleased, so it could leave Evan like a hot breath.

He was sure he looked like the monster he was right now, with the fresh blood of Jeff’s friends splashed across his chest and dripping from his cleaver. Evan wouldn’t have blamed the artist for bolting for safety at the sight of him, but he appreciated that Jeff was brave enough to stay even for a moment. Getting a last glimpse of the man he spared felt good. It was so rare something in the Fog felt like anything real, let alone like something good. Fueled by that tiny thread of good, Evan stayed still, and he watched. He would see Jeff leave and that would be some solace. It was the least he could do for the small kindness those few words were to him. 

The sole survivor stood in the shine of lights while Evan remained in the shadow outside of the gate. The ground was beginning to crack beneath his feet, warm and glowing, as this version of the farm threatened to fall apart around them. Evan cleared his throat, the idea of speaking blossoming in his chest, but his long silence made it feel like his voice was rusted. Even if he did speak, there was nothing he could possibly say that would be reasonable. He was a murderer, a monster, giving him a temporary reprieve from this eternal nightmare. There was no cause for conversation. There never would be. Not even a goodbye was appropriate, and Evan was painfully aware of it. 

Jeff took a few more steps into the gate and then looked back over his shoulder. Evan couldn’t understand why he was lingering, until Jeff reached into his jacket and held up the sketchbook in the light. He was showing Evan that he still had it, that he kept it. Evan didn’t return it in vain. He breathed a sigh of relief and he didn’t know why. Instead, Evan just nodded at the survivor, confirming that he saw what the artist had shown him. Evan’s head began to ache, and the fiery light streamed through the ground, signaling the end of the Entity’s patience with maintaining this memory of the farm. It would claim any remaining survivor for itself if they stayed. They both knew t Finally, Jeff took off past the twisting, living barricade. All at once, the destruction of the farm around him stopped dead. The ground became whole and cold again, with Evan now able to notice the cool evening breeze. The pounding of his heart in his head and the rushing adrenaline through his veins faded, making him feel as close to normal as he ever does. 

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and listening to the rustle of the corn stalks in the breeze. The familiar sharp coppery sting reached his nose and he looked down at himself. An absolutely horror show, rubber apron so hopelessly splattered in blood that there was nowhere to wipe his equally bloody hands off on it. It had been a long time since Evan felt the knot in his stomach after the Entity left him. He didn’t think he was able to feel it anymore, the shuddering combination of nerves and nausea that came with being compelled to do horrible things. 

It was all wrong. He shouldn’t feel it anymore. He didn’t have any right to be upset with his work. It had been too long. Evan should have become cold to his core, immune to this feeling, a long time ago. Instead, bile burned in his throat. He swallowed hard and walked into the gate, lights already dimming since the last survivor was gone. He walked out into the infinite, shifting forest beyond. His father would have busted his jaw if the old man saw him act so weak over a few pointless deaths, after he had caused so many. Evan sucked in a lungful of cool, damp air and tried to focus on the sound of his own steps to push that thought from his mind. That was the last thing he needed to dwell on right now. Something that made him feel worse. 

He trusted the woods to twist until no matter what direction he chose, he would walk back out onto the memory of the Macmillan Estate. It was how it always happened. He was let loose when the Entity wanted him to work and then was corralled back to the place he was kept, like a badly trained hound. Some small animal comfort would be there when he returned, by way of reward, and then time would drag on like it always did. 

Evan could feel in his gut that between this hunt and the next, it was going to be different. He only hoped that his keeper would let him rest for long enough that this old feeling would die again. It was better when he didn't feel it. 

Wasn't it?


	3. Jeff I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth about whether to change perspectives in this work at all. Jeff sections won't be common, but i feel like they add something I couldn't do with Evan's limited perspective.

Jeff Johansen, in his life before this hell, generally spent a lot of time by himself. Freelance art was sort of a work at your own desk by yourself affair and he can’t say it wasn’t a life that suited him. A break to go throw the ball with his dog Rebel in the backyard was usually all he needed by way of a social recharge. An ache, for both his dog and his quiet home, never quite left Jeff here in the fog. To be inside, safe, listening to an old rock vinyl on the little hipster record player he’d picked up when they came back in fashion? He wanted that life he had worked so hard to build for himself back so badly that it hurt

Here, huddled around the campfire in makeshift shelters they all pitched together to make with blood and sweat, he was grateful for the company of the others. He knew in his very bones he wouldn’t have lasted without them. They shared everything they had, from med supplies to comforts from the real world. The twelve pack of supermarket beer Jeff brought up to the lodge in Ormond on that shit night who knows how long ago replaced itself when they weren’t looking, as did the weed that Nea and Feng had been carrying when they disappeared. Bill had been smoking the same last three cigarettes from a smashed pack since before Jeff arrived, leftover from the apocalypse the old man came from, and he’d would hand one over to whoever asked. Even when tensions ran high among the group, they all understood it was because they were living in insane circumstances. If you could really call it living, Jeff supposed. It was wrong in all sorts of ways. 

Even as much as he appreciated them, sometimes Jeff had to get away from the other survivors. It was so hard to decompress out here, especially if good music and relaxing indoors alone was the preferred method to do such. They had picked out together a boundary in the woods around their campfire, marked by various stakes and stacked brush in a makeshift fence that didn’t shift around in the never-ending forest. Generally, he would just find an unoccupied place and sit in the quiet. He’d just try to breathe and forget for one precious second that he wasn’t in this horrible place.

Lately, it was even harder to forget. The scarred hand that reached across the impossible gap between their places in this nightmare and gave him his art back weighed heavy on his mind, so Jeff stepped away from the quiet hum of conversation around the campfire and into the dark of the forest more often. Usually, he would sit in the quiet and sketch, close enough to the fire to see but far enough away he felt privacy. Since what happened, whenever he opened a pad to sketch, Jeff thought about the hand that gave it one back to him. A hand, scarred, stained, and burnt, that had killed him so many times. He had to close the sketchbook again after that. 

Sketching being out of the question at the moment for trying to unwind, this time Jeff walked aimlessly through the brush to try to clear his head. After some distracted wandering, the soft clink of metal on metal startled him out of his thoughts. Jake Park was sitting on a log with a few dented toolboxes in front of him, apparently sorting equipment.

Sometimes he felt bad about invading Jake’s space because he generally kept to himself, but since Jeff was happy to sit in the quiet and sketch to clear his head, they had come to an easy companionship. Not that Jeff didn’t consider the other survivors’ friends, he absolutely did. They had gone through enough together to earn that several times over, every one of them. Being able to sit in the quiet with someone, though. That’s different. He appreciated that. Jeff sat down on the other side of the log with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. 

“Art block?” Jake was sorting out broken and burnt out parts from one of the toolboxes and putting new pieces in, preparing it for when someone was called into the fog. He was examining a mess of wire at the moment, slowly unwinding the spool where less practiced hands tangled it when replacing broken generator wires in a rush. “You seem to be a bit out of it lately”

“Ah…Yeah? I don’t want to bother you with it.” Jeff shrugged, trying for nonchalant as if it weren’t a big deal, but he could tell as soon as he did it that it didn’t come across right.   
Jake’s hands kept working, picking up a pair of cutters to clip the ragged ends and pare back the insulation on the wire so it can be easily used next time. It was important work. There was more than one time that Jake’s preparations had saved his skin with a quick repair. Jake’s expression, however, betrayed his skepticism at Jeff’s response.  
“We’ve got time.” Jake had a slight smirk on his face and Jeff chuckled sheepishly. He was right. All they had here was time. Time, dark, and fog. 

“I didn’t realize anybody was paying attention.” Jeff admitted. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Paying attention around here sometimes kept you alive. Several of them specialized in it.

“Feng noticed you’d seemed distracted for a while and I couldn’t help but notice after she said something. So, what’s up? You okay?” 

“Not really, if I’m being honest.” Jeff reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out the sketchpad that had been returned to him. He opened it up, flipping through the pages till he found the half-finished sketch of the industry building. It was the page that he kept coming back to look at because it had a rusty red fingerprint on the page, bigger than Jeff’s and Jeff wasn’t a tiny guy by any means. It was Trapper’s print in Jeff’s blood. It had chilled him when he first found it, and Jeff again ran his own finger over the stain. “So, do you remember that day Claud had to splint my ankle?”

Jake nodded and Jeff held out the open sketchpad to Jake, who set down his tools to take it. He saw Jake’s own fingers settle over the bloody print. The implication of the size was apparent, and Jeff could see the veteran survivor’s eyes widen a bit. Jeff brushed a strand of hair out of his face, out of the way of his good eye. “I got the pad I lost that day back.”   
“You said you dropped it on the Ironworks.” Jake said, looking at him in a concerned way. “I thought I told you not to go back there, at least not alone.”

“I didn’t. I got…given it back. During the last trial we had with Trapper.” Jeff felt a some of that sole survivor guilt rise in his chest, tightening a knot under his sternum that threatened to choke his voice. It didn’t get easier to see people die when you could have saved them.

“He ran me the fuck down that trial.” Jake’s hand went to his chest, to the place the stuttered scars from the Entity’s hooks were on all the survivors, a small cluster of healed over punctures from where the hook didn’t go in quite the same place. Everything healed here, all wounds, and most things went just went away. The hook scars seemed like they were theirs to keep. Jeff had long since decided that if he ever got out of here, he was going to get them tattooed over with the symbol the survivors used for each other, the interconnected circle of gears. 

“Yeah.” Jeff remembered vividly helping to apply an abdominal dressing to the gushing wound in Jake’s side, as the other survivor refused to make a sound. Jake wouldn’t make eye contact during times like that. He might not make noise, but the pain was so raw in his eyes and he never wanted the others to see it. “He watched me go. Twice. First was when I helped Claud out of a trap and again when I was opening the door to leave. It was on purpose. I’m positive.” It felt good to say it out loud that it wasn’t on his own merits that that he survived. “I don’t know…what I did to deserve it.” Jeff swallowed, trying to clear that knot of guilt. Next time, someone else will live and you’ll die. Everyone goes through it. He exhaled slowly, but the anxiety didn’t loosen. That’s what Meg told him the first time it happened. He tried to remember it when he felt like this. It was different this time. He was picked out on purpose and that felt even heavier than living by chance when everyone else died. 

Jake made a thoughtful noise, placing the coil of wire into one of the toolboxes and leaning down to continue to allot various gadgets in the dented boxes. They both knew it wasn’t unheard of for a killer to let some of them go. The Wraith sometimes would just disappear and let survivors leave after a death or a few injuries. The Pig would let a person go if they got the bear trap off, provided that they didn’t break some of her incomprehensible rules. The Hillbilly could get easily distracted and leave survivors alone. That wasn’t how it was with Trapper. The Trapper always felt like an extension of his traps, cold, waiting, and inevitable. This time, it had almost felt like there was something was behind that mask, something that was even the littlest bit sympathetic. It felt like downright treason to try to articulate that. 

“No wonder you didn’t want to talk about what happened.” Jake finally said and Jeff nodded. He spent a lot of time curled up just outside of the ring of the campfire, trying to process what happened, right after he came back. They all knew living hit him harder than dying anymore, so no one had asked specifics. Nea had offered him a beer in quiet and a pat on the shoulder. Jeff supposed Feng noticed something was up with him because he couldn’t shake it off fast enough. No surprise there. Hell, he still hadn’t shaken it off.

“Yeah. I don’t know what to make of it.” Jeff said and the words seemed to hang in the air. The gentle metallic rustling of Jake’s work finally came to an end and the other survivor fixed his eyes on Jeff properly. 

“Give you back something that’s yours is a normal thing to do. If I were you, that’s what would be fucking me up right now.”

“Yeah, but…” Jeff sighed. He might as well be out with it. He had been keeping his conflicted feelings to himself because eventually, if he shared, what was going on with him would make it around all of camp. Not that he felt like Jake was a gossip. If anything, starting with Jake would make it take way longer to make the rounds but with everyone under constant stress, eventually survivors expressed concerns to each other. Most likely, it’d just be Jake telling Feng to keep an eye on him, and then she’d come ask herself what was up and there’s no way Jeff couldn’t also tell her. “It’s not just that, if I’m honest.” 

“So be honest.” Jake said, the words not phrased like a challenge, but rather like a solution. “I wouldn’t have asked if you were all right if I didn’t want you to be.” 

“You’ve been here a long time, Jake. What do you know about The Trapper?” Instead of coming right out with it, Jeff pivoted a little. He certainly didn’t know enough himself about Trapper to piece together motive for the strange interactions he had experienced. 

“That I’m a pain in his ass, probably. Teaching all of the rest of you to disarm traps.” Jake had turned to face him, and Jeff made less eye contact than he would have liked. Jake handed the sketchbook back over and Jeff closed it in his hands, running fingers over the cover as he tried to articulate his thoughts.

“No, I mean it. Like…not in a trial. Anything…else?”

“Uhh…he’s not modern. The machinery in the ironworks is old. I don’t know how old. History’s not my thing. But the gens are out of place. The stuff there is solid, but not new. His place is good for looking for tools, not too enclosed like the hospital or the lab. Harder to get cornered.” Jake Park was practical as always. That wasn’t exactly what Jeff was actually asking about. He cleared his throat and made his question clearer.

“Have you…run into him outside of a trial before?” Jeff tried. 

“Yeah. Yeah, a couple times.” Jake confirmed. It wasn’t really surprising. Jake brushed up against several killers outside of the trials when looking for resources for the group. He was quiet, practical in the woods, and a seasoned survivor. 

“What was that like?” Jeff asked, hoping to hear something that might give a hint of an explanation.

“Mostly? He ignored me.” Jake said, after a moment’s thought. 

“Yeah?” That wasn’t what Jeff was hoping for. 

“Yeah. I’ve seen him watch me take stuff and leave. He’s run me out when I’ve stayed too long. Let me get out of the traps I know he should have heard snap on me. it’s almost like he’s not at work. It’s why I pop back to the Estate for stuff most often. I don’t think it’s fun for him, like it is for some of the others.” Jake and Jeff shared a look. All the veteran survivors took care to warn the new arrivals as soon as they which of their tormentors did it for enjoyment, for which ones the gore was sport. Doctor, Legion, Clown, Ghostface, Nightmare, Shape. It was a mantra that they taught Jeff once, and that Jeff has taught other since. God, even the Legion didn't single him out like this and he had known them once. 

“Do you think that’s what it is?” Jeff asked. Was that all it was? Was he hurt while Trapper was punched out of his bizarre work? Something in Jeff still thought this felt wrong. 

“Do you think it’s something else?” Jake turned his full attention to Jeff.

“I…I don’t know.” Jeff looks down at the pad again. “I didn’t actually get myself out of the trap that day I fucked up my ankle. He did.” 

“Trapper caught you?” Jake’s lips pressed together in worry, but just a little.

“Picked me straight up out of it, more like. Dropped me to the dirt like always and I just sat there and waited for him to kill me. I couldn’t run, not with that ankle. You saw it.” A nod from Jake both confirmed and encouraged the quieter survivor to continue” It wouldn’t be the first time a killer finished me. I get in the way, you know?” Jake nodded. He definitely did know; he did the same thing and they both knew it. He stayed quiet though, so Jeff continued. “He didn’t, though. He picked me up, took me to the gate, and set me down onto my feet. He held me up till I found something to lean on to stand. It wasn’t just ignoring me. It was…help.” 

Jake’s work with his toolboxes was forgotten in the dark for the moment. Instead he was just watching Jeff as he told the story. Jeff felt a bit anxious, being put on the spot tended to do that to him, especially when the other person stayed quiet. Jake could be pretty unreadable if he tried. Fortunately, they were friends, and the outdoorsman noticed Jeff fidget nervously.

“Help. Well, fuck.” Jake finally said. A silence floated between them as Jake picked up the refilled toolbox and clipped the lid shut, before continuing. “It was almost like you were a person to him.”

“Yeah.” Jeff swallowed hard. It felt weird to be picked out of the crowd in any way for Jeff. He’d rather be ignored. Especially in this case. 

“Fucked up.” Jake murmured to himself, and Jeff found himself agreeing. The idea of a killer paying special attention to him ran shivers down his spine. Maybe this is even a speck of what Laurie or Quentin felt all the time. “I guess…you could say thanks?”

“What?” Jeff looked at Jake, who was wearing a puzzled sort of expression but showing the barest hint of a smile. 

“I don’t know, he had to give it back for a reason, right? Maybe he liked your art. Maybe he’ll go easier on us. What could it hurt?” Jake’s hand went to his chest, back to those staggered hook scars. “Just the usual, right?” 

Jeff tilted his head back, looking up into the trees of this corrupt forest disappearing out into the fog that covered it and the forever night sky that always hung above it. Stuff was never different here. For a long time, he wished that anything at all would change, just so there would be a moment of difference in the horrible cycle. Right now, he kind of regretted that. This was not the kind of difference he wanted. His own hand went to the spot on his chest, the memories of hundreds of hooks. He heaved a sigh.

“Maybe you’re right.” 

Maybe any chance for mercy was worth taking.


End file.
